Would You Like To Live To A Hundred?

There is a small village in Southern China called Bama where people are living to the ripe old age of 100 and above. It is so famous that now tourists are flocking to that village to see for themselves and to discover the secret behind the villagers' longevity.

Watch this video for the report.



Could their longevity be due to the water they drink? Or the food they eat? Or the clean air they breathe? Or is it due to their carefree, relaxing lifestyle devoid of any stress and mental problems? Could their daily activities and 'tai chi' exercises contributed to their long life span?

Or even maybe, it's all due to the good feng shui or the magnetic field in the area.

Perhaps it is the combination of all these factors that hold the secret to their longevity.

Whatever it is, do you want to be like them - to live to a hundred and beyond?


100 Longevity Characters from Csymbol

Let's take it further. What if humans one day discover the elixir of youth and live forever? What if we can choose not to die? Live eternally forever and ever? Like the vampire Lestat in Anne Rice's Interview With The Vampire.

Will you then yearn to die? To end it all?

Will dying become your goal in life? Wouldn't that be ironic?



To me, I would love to live to a hundred. But maybe not more than a hundred. And definitely not forever. But it all depends.

If I am healthy and still mentally sharp and still able to enjoy sex at the ripe old age of hundred, why not? Haha! Although I would want to look as youthful as now. Not with all those wrinkles! Talk about vanity!

But if I am sick, cannot walk without a walking stick, or bedridden, is there any point in living to a hundred? Might as well die earlier, no?

But nowadays, you will be lucky to live to a hundred. Especially for those of us who stay in the cities. At least those who are living in kampongs or villages still have the chance. With all the stress and fast-paced city lifestyle, and the pollution and the type of food we eat daily, we are lucky if we make it past 60!

Humans' life span are getting shorter. I still remember people during the Biblical periods lived to a few hundred years. I wonder if there is any truth in that!

Although advancement in science and medicine had managed to prolong humans' lives, yet most of the prolonged years are lived in misery.

As for the prospect of living forever, I think I will be bored to death. Tell me what can you do when you are 6,000 years old! You would have visited every corners of the world! You would have tasted every single food there is to taste. You would have done all there is to do except maybe, killing yourself.


Image courtesy of Write Spirit

But hold on. We are meant to have eternal life. That's according to the Bible. But every religion does mention that we are eternal. We may pass on, but our souls continue to live. And according to Buddhism, we come back to Earth again and again and again until we can break out of that karmic cycle.

So will our souls be bored? Perhaps not. Because we seek to experience different things. We seek to create different things. In different lifetimes. In different parellel universes. We are after all, creators.

Perhaps that's why not many will reach Buddhahood. Not that they can't. They don't want to. They choose to come back to Earth and create a different experience so as to know who they really are.


Image courtesy of 100 Musical Footsteps

So perhaps living eternally in our same physical body is not such a good idea and it may be against the nature of things. We need to die so that we have the chance to change our experience.

But living to a hundred? That's OK provided we have not achieved what we have set out to do. Otherwise, why bother to live to a hundred?

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